The driving of rotatably mounted drums, cylinders or rollers of stationary machines, such as, for example, paper machines, rotary machines or the likes, generally takes place by driving a shaft extending coaxially to a roller, the shaft and roller being connected to one another by means of a clutch transmitting the drive torque.
Clutches of the type which are arranged coaxially between a shaft and a roller arranged coaxially to the shaft are particularly space-saving here.
A clutch of this type for transmitting a torque between a spindle or shaft and a roller is known from German Patent Publication DE 26 50 692 A1.
In order to be able to temporarily stop or drive individual shafts and/or rollers of continuously driven machines, it is necessary to arrange a preferably remotely controllable clutch which can be disengaged and/or engaged between the drive and the respective roller.
A clutch of this type should be as easy as possible to activate, substantially maintenance-free and operable with simple means. Moreover, it is desirable that there is no risk of an explosion, and no danger of contamination of the product produced by a respective machine from the means for actuating the clutch, for example in the event of a defect. On the other hand, the means should be as easily available as possible.
A pneumatically actuable disc clutch for rope pulleys, belt pulleys or the like to be driven and freely rotatably mounted on a drive shaft is known from German Patent Publication DE 1 747 650 U1. To actuate the clutch, a pneumatic cylinder which is formed from a tube piece is provided, the piston of which is formed by a disc arranged in the tube. The clutch is disengaged, upon an interruption of the compressed air supply, by means of a spring against the restoring force of the piston. The clutch is arranged at the free end of the drive shaft, the pneumatic cylinder and the clutch discs having a larger diameter than the shaft and a drive shaft connected, for example, to a rope pulley. The disadvantage of this is that the known disc clutch projects both in the axial and in the radial direction over the drive shaft and the output shaft. Therefore, no mounting of the shafts is possible, for example, at the end at which the disc clutch is arranged. In addition, installation space is required as a result, which cannot be provided in a large number of machines. This makes the known disc clutch unusable for machines in which a two-sided mounting of the shaft and the roller arranged thereon is required. Moreover, a complete restoring of the clutch discs by the springs against the restoring force of the piston cannot be ensured so a high degree of wear of the clutch discs occurs as they already have slippage between them when a minimum pressing force is fallen below and thus abrade one another.